Just a Thought "78"

Romans 5:9-10 - “much more” The goal of the apostle Paul is to establish us and every believer in the knowledge of our sanctified standing before God, our being in his son. These are “much more” security doctrinal passages that we find in this section of Romans, you will see Paul using that term over and over again.

Justification and Sanctification are “much more” assurance doctrines that Paul is giving us as to the security that we as believers have being placed into Christ. Paul wants to establish our minds in the “much more” assurance that we have, so we can have that stability of mind and stability of emotions.

This is security. This is who we are in Christ, we can not lose it. So, this is a “much more” doctrine when it comes to the establishment of the mind of the believer and the truth of their secure identity in Christ. You see, God could only grant a gift decree of the very righteousness of Christ to those God would be joining to his son, Jesus Christ. This is why our faith in Christ’s faithful sacrifice is essential.

Romans 6:19-21 - “to iniquity unto iniquity” The general principle works across the board. One pleasurable  indulgence, leads to another pleasurable indulgence. One serving of self, leads to another serving of self. Words spoken in haste, lead to other words spoken in haste, harmful words, to further harmful words. One sin leads to another sin, to iniquity unto iniquity.

Paul is exhorting us, as believers to bring our conduct in line with our identity in Christ. The believer makes the choice of who they will obey and you are a slave no matter what you choose. We serve the sin nature rather than our Savior, as we serve self rather than the Body of Saints to whom we are as equally and intimately joined, as we are joined to our Savior.

We were free from imputed righteousness before we trusted Christ as our Savior. You see, it is one thing to be righteous in the eyes of the world, many people have that kind of righteousness, but Scripture clearly distinguishes between the righteousness that people attempt to produce in themselves and that type of righteousness that is credited to a person’s account called imputed righteousness.

Human righteousness comes from self-interest-motivation, it is self-glorifying and unbelievers are under no obligation to serve righteousness. It should not surprise us to see what we see now and what we will be seeing in an increasing manner as time goes on in the world today. The unsaved world is simply serving the master they are under.

Philippians 4:9 - Paul was no stranger to adversity, to calamity, to distress, to stress, for that matter, everywhere he went, they were right under his heels. Satan was working far more fervently in Paul’s life than he is working in our lives today, because Paul was God’s initial conduit for the relaying of the gospel of Christ.

How did Paul face adversity? Paul assessed the situation, he made statements such as, “I have learned” and “I reckon,” he reasoned things through. We are to access our situation. Why would we need to reason out the source of the problem? There are avoidable suffering circumstances and there are unavoidable suffering circumstances that come our way.

Avoidable suffering has to do with the choices we make in our lives. When we sow an inappropriate choice, we can count on the fact that sooner or later, we are going to be faced with an unfortunate circumstance. Many problems come our way simply because of our insistence upon having our way. How many problems would disappear if we could all conduct ourselves in a more Christ-like manner when it comes to the sacrifice of self in preferring others over self?

Satan was working far more fervently in Paul’s life than he is working in our lives today. Paul was God’s initial conduit for the relaying of the gospel of Christ. Paul was the chosen spokesman for God to relay the information for this entire dispensation. Satan had for more reason to give it his all when it came to Paul.